US immigration

Subterms

    More stories

    • 238 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘I escaped one gulag only to end up in another’: Russian asylum seekers face Ice detention in the US

      by

      For most of the four years of Joe Biden was in office, citizens of Russia and other post-Soviet states seeking asylum in the US were generally released into the country while they awaited hearings on their claim in immigration court.But since last summer, many have been detained upon entering the US, and some of them have been held for more than a year, lawyers, activists and detainees say. Some children have been separated from their parents.“My Russian clients tell me, ‘Now our prison is 80% Russian, the remaining 20% are from rotating nationalities who stay for a while,’” said immigration attorney Julia Nikolaev, who has been advocating for detainees’ rights alongside representatives of the Russian opposition. “Only Russians and a few other post-Soviet nationals remain in detention until their final hearings.”Alexei Demin, a 62-year-old former naval officer from Moscow, was detained in July of last year.In the last 20 years, Demin rarely missed an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in the Russian capital. He had become concerned almost immediately after Putin, a former KGB agent, rose to power, he said. For years, he criticized Putin’s regime on Facebook, and he was detained twice at protests. Still, he never imagined that he would end up fleeing his homeland for fear that Putin’s regime would imprison him. Or that he would end up imprisoned in the US.When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a colleague asked Demin why he wasn’t enlisting to fight. He replied: “If I go, it will be on Ukraine’s side.” Soon, as the crackdown on dissent in Russia intensified amid the war, Demin and his wife, like many others who had long openly opposed Putin, fled to the US to seek political asylum. For years, Russians have been among the top five nationalities granted asylum.The couple arrived in the US in the summer of 2024, after securing an appointment through CBP One, the app launched by the Biden administration (and since then shut down by Donald Trump) allowing asylum applicants to schedule to meet with immigration officials. At their appointment, Demin and his wife were detained, separated and sent to detention centers in different states. They haven’t seen each other since.His predicament, Demin said, was “a trap and a blatant injustice”.“This is how the US treats people who protest against Russia’s policies,” he said in a call from a detention center in Virginia in January.US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) does not release public data on the number of people from post-Soviet countries it holds in detention. But Nikolaev said that law enforcement officials have privately acknowledged to her that asylum seekers from those countries are being held longer.Other activists say they have seen similar patterns. The non-profit Russian America for Democracy in Russia (RADR) has played an active role in assisting detainees in immigration detention centers, finding lawyers and working with the government officials.Dmitry Valuev, president of RADR, said it was an issue that affected not only Russians, but also citizens of several other post-Soviet countries.There have been reports that some immigrants arriving from post-Soviet states are facing increased scrutiny over fears they are connected to Islamist terrorist organizations. It’s unclear what prompted US authorities to keep the Russian asylum seekers in detention. One theory is that immigration officials are targeting Russians and other post-Soviet nationals as spies.Eric Rubin, former US ambassador to Bulgaria who also served as a deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Moscow, said that the complicated history of US-Russia diplomacy can hurt Russian asylum applicants.“When you meet Russians in the United States, obviously you need to wonder whether some of them are actually working for Russian intelligence. Some of them are, most of them are not,” said Rubin.Nikolaev isn’t so sure. “Russian spies can enter the country with European passports, visas and all the right documents,” she said.Nikolaev in January took her concerns to US government officials, alongside Ilya Yashin, a leading Russian opposition figure. They met with officials at the national security council, who requested a list of separated families, Nikolaev said.The Department of Homeland Security, Ice and the national security council did not respond to repeated questions about detention policies or the specific cases outlined in this article.In a statement, the White House said that the duration of cases varies based on legal proceedings and any protections sought. The White House also said there had been “zero instances of children from any of the countries you mentioned being separated from their families by US immigration authorities in this entire fiscal year”.View image in fullscreenBut Galina Kaplunova, 26, an illustrator and anti-Putin activist, was detained and separated from her child and mother at the US border last August.In the summer of 2024, Kaplunova’s husband, a Kremlin supporter, had threatened to take her child away and report her to the police for her political activism, Kaplunova said. A native of St Petersburg, she had been detained multiple times at protests and had volunteered in opposition leaders’ campaign offices. Two days after her husband made the threat, Kaplunova, her four-year-old son and her mother fled to the US.At the US border with Mexico, Ice agents separated Kaplunova from her son, she said. He was placed in foster care, while she and her mother were sent to different detention centers in separate states.After being separated, her son was placed with a Mexican American family, she said. He didn’t speak English, so communicated with them through Google Translate.“I fled Russia so they wouldn’t take my child or jail me. But the US did,” she said.About two months after being detained and separated, Kaplunova was released and reunited with her son, she said. It was a miracle, she said.Now Kaplunova and her son now live in California. Her mother is still detained. Her son is afraid of being abandoned. Whenever she tries to discuss his time in foster care, he simply says he doesn’t remember it.“It’s as if he erased that part of his life so he wouldn’t have to remember it,” she said.He learned some English in foster care, but refuses to speak it with his mother.“Maybe he associates English with something bad, something negative,” she said.Valuev, the president of RADR, said that long periods of detention can hurt applicants’ asylum cases. Hiring a lawyer from within a detention center is nearly impossible due to the lack of internet access, he said. “Detainees are given a list of contacts, but most of these numbers don’t answer the phone,” he said.Additionally, many detainees have no access to materials for their asylum cases because their documents were stored on computers and phones that were confiscated.Vladislav Krasnov, a protest organizer and activist from Moscow, said he spent 444 days in a Louisiana detention center. Krasnov fled Russia in 2022 after Putin announced a draft. He crossed the border with the CBP One appointment and was swiftly detained. Now free, he is still waiting for a court hearing to review his asylum case.Reflecting on his experience, he said he was shocked by the welcome he got in the United States. “I escaped one gulag only to end up in another,” Krasnov said.He was also angry at Russian opposition leaders for not paying attention to his plight until recently.“Last summer, I watched Yulia Navalnaya hugging Biden in the Oval Office. Then she talked on the phone with [Kamala] Harris, and Harris declared that America supports people fighting for Russia’s freedom. To put it mildly, I had a complete breakdown at that moment, sitting in detention,” Krasnov said.About 300 detainees from Russia and other post-Soviet countries filed a lawsuit last November, calling their detention discriminatory, and demanding freedom for people they argue were held without a justification. A federal judge ruled in February that the court lacked the jurisdiction to review the detention policy and dismissed the case.View image in fullscreenAmong those mentioned in the lawsuit was Polina Guseva, a political activist and volunteer on the team of the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. Guseva arrived in the US in July 2024, applied for asylum and was sent to a detention center. She said Ice officers at the Louisiana detention facility where she’s being held “openly say that Russians are not being released”.Still, she does not regret coming to the US, she said, adding safety concerns in Russia left her with no other choice.“Two thoughts help me a lot. First, better to be here than to be raped with a dumbbell in a Russian prison,” Guseva said. “And second, my friend Daniil Kholodny is still in prison in Russia. He was the technical director of the Navalny Live YouTube channel. He was tried alongside Alexei Navalny in his last trial and sentenced to eight years. He has been imprisoned for more than two years now. If he can hold on, why shouldn’t I?”Alexei Demin, the former naval officer and longtime protester, was supposed to have his first asylum court hearing reviewing his asylum case in early February, but the hearing was rescheduled to mid-April because of the judge’s sickness. By that time, he will have been in detention for more than 300 days. More

    • 188 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      US deports 250 alleged gang members to El Salvador despite court ruling to halt flights

      by

      The US deported more than 250 mainly Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador despite a US judge’s ruling to halt the flights on Saturday after Donald Trump controversially invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law meant only to be used in wartime.El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and 23 members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 had arrived and were in custody as part of a deal under which the US will pay the Central American country to hold them in its 40,000-person capacity “terrorism confinement centre”.The confirmation came hours after a US federal judge expanded his ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration from invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority that allows the president broad leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.The US district judge James Boasberg had attempted to halt the deportations for all individuals deemed eligible for removal under Trump’s proclamation, which was issued on Friday. Boasberg also ordered deportation flights already in the air to return to the US.“Oopsie … Too late,” Bukele posted online, followed by a laughing emoji.Soon after Bukele’s statement, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, thanked El Salvador’s leader.“Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele,” he wrote on the social media site X, following up on an earlier post in which he said the US had sent “2 dangerous top MS-13 leaders plus 21 of its most wanted back to face justice in El Salvador”.Rubio added that “over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars”.On Friday, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to order the deportations of suspected members of the Venezuelan gang he has accused of “unlawfully infiltrating” the US. The US formally designated Tren de Aragua a “foreign terrorist organization” last month.View image in fullscreenHe claimed the gang members were “conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions” against the US.The Alien Enemies Act has only ever been used three times before, most recently during the second world war, when it was used to incarcerate Germans and Italians as well as for the mass internment of Japanese-American civilians.It was originally passed by Congress in preparation for what the US believed would be an impending war with France. It was also used during the war of 1812 and during the first world war. The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, slammed Judge Boasberg’s stay on deportations. “This order disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk,” Bondi said in a statement on Saturday night.But lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union contend that the Trump does not have the authority to use the law against a criminal gang, rather than a recognized state.On Sunday, the Republican senator Mike Rounds questioned whether the deportation flights had ignored Judge Boasberg’s order to turn around. “We’ll find out whether or not that actually occurred or not,” Rounds told CNN. “I don’t know about the timing on it. I do know that we will follow the law.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEl Salvador’s multimillion-dollar “terrorism confinement centre” – which is known by its Spanish acronym Cecot – is the centerpiece of Bukele’s highly controversial anti-gang crackdown which has seen tens of thousands of people jailed since it was launched in March 2022.The 40,000-capacity “mega-prison” was opened at the start of 2023 and has since become an essential destination for rightwing Latin American populists keen to burnish their crime-fighting credentials with voters. “This is the way. Tough on crime,” Argentina’s hardline security minister, Patricia Bullrich, enthused last year after posing outside Cecot’s packed cells.A succession of social media influencers and foreign journalists have also been invited to tour the prison to document its harsh conditions and help Bukele promote his clampdown, which has helped dramatically reduce El Salvador’s once sky-high murder rate.“The conditions in there are like something you’ve never seen … Depending on which side of the argument you fall on, it’s either the ultimate deterrent or it’s an abuse of human rights,” the Australian TV journalist Liam Bartlett reported after visiting El Salvador’s “hellhole” prison recently.“There’s no sheets [and] no mattresses. [Prisoners] sleep on cold steel frames and they eat the same meal every single day. Utensils are banned so they use their hands [to eat]. There’s just two open toilets in each of these massive cells and the lights stay on 24/7,” Bartlett added. “Imagine how long you would last in these conditions.”Human rights activists have decried how the mass imprisonments have taken place largely without legal process. More than 100 prisoners have died behind bars since Bukele’s clampdown began.Neither the US nor El Salvador offered any immediate evidence that the scores of Venezuelan prisoners sent to Cecot this weekend were in fact gang members or had been convicted of any offense. More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Maga since forever’: mercenary mogul Erik Prince pushes to privatize Trump deportation plans

      by

      Silicon Valley has played a sizable part in the early days of Donald Trump’s new administration, but another familiar face in the Maga-verse is beginning to emerge: businessman Erik Prince, often described by his critics as a living “Bond villain”.Prince is the most famous mercenary of the contemporary era and the founder of the now defunct private military company Blackwater. For a time, it was a prolific privateer in the “war on terror”, racking up millions in US government contracts by providing soldiers of fortune to the CIA, Pentagon and beyond.Now he is a central figure among a web of other contractors trying to sell Trump advisers on a $25bn deal to privatize the mass deportations of 12 million migrants.In an appearance on NewsNation, he immediately tried to temper that his plan had any traction.“No indications, so far,” said Prince about a federal contract materializing. “Eventually if they’re going to hit those kinds of numbers and scale, they’re going to need additional private sector.”But the news had people wondering, how is Prince going to factor into the second Trump presidency?Sean McFate, a professor at Georgetown University who has advised the Pentagon and the CIA, said: “Erik Prince has always been politically connected to Maga, the Maga movement, and that’s going back to 2015.”Prince, himself a special forces veteran and ex-Navy Seal, is a known business associate of Steve Bannon, the architect of Trump’s first electoral win. Prince even appeared with him last July at a press conference before Bannon surrendered to authorities and began a short prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena.“He comes from a wealthy Republican family,” said McFate, who has authored books on the global mercenary industry and is familiar with Prince’s history. “His sister, Betsy DeVos, is the former education secretary, and he’s been a Maga, not just a Maga, he’s been a Steve Bannon, Maga Breitbart Republican, since forever.”Beginning during the two Bush administrations, Blackwater was a major recipient of Pentagon money flowing into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But a massacre in Baghdad at the hands of some of his contractors led to prison sentences, congressional inquiries and blacklistings of the firm.Years later, Trump would come to the rescue: pardoning all of the Blackwater mercenaries involved in the massacre.Now, with the current administration, which is doling out free advertising to Elon Musk and other Maga loyalists, Prince has a new and familiar ally in Washington.“This is a big market time for him,” said McFate. “He’s very quiet when there’s a Democrat in the White House and gets very noisy when a Republican, especially Trump, is in the White House; I expect this to be one of many things he will try to pitch.”Do you have tips about private military contractors or the world of Erik Prince? Tip us securely here or text Ben Makuch at BenMakuch.90 on Signal.McFate said Prince is nothing if not an “opportunist” and an “egotist” with a penchant for getting into media cycles.“If Trump or somebody says ‘That’s an interesting idea,’ he will pump out a PowerPoint slideshow proposing an idea, whether or not he can do it,” he said. Prince also has the ear of Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and was a character witness for her Senate confirmation.There’s no denying Prince is a relentless pitchman, offering world governments billion-dollar plans to privatize wars or other less expensive espionage activities. For example, he was recently named to the advisory board of the London-based private intelligence firm Vantage Intelligence, which advises “sovereign wealth funds” and other “high-net-worth individuals”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPost-Blackwater and under new companies, he has proposed missions in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Congo, Libya and, purportedly, Venezuela – a country he often mentions as ripe for overthrow on his podcast, Off Leash.A senior commander in an alliance of former Venezuelan soldiers who defected from the Chavista regime told the Guardian his organization has been asking Prince for help against the country’s current president, Nicolás Maduro.“We have sent messages to Mr Erik Prince to try to see if we can meet,” said Javier Nieto Quintero, a Florida-based former captain in the Venezuelan military and leader of the Venezuelan dissident organization Carive. “If he wants, we can provide help, support in terms of information, intelligence, or any other area based on the freedom of our country.”Nieto Quintero, who said Prince has yet to respond, and Carive was used in a failed operation against Maduro in 2020 led by a former Green Beret. In what is notoriously known as the “Bay of Piglets”, six of Nieto Quintero’s men were killed and close to 100 captured, including two former US servicemen recruited for the job who were freed two years ago from a Caracas prison.Prince’s eye has undoubtedly been focused on Venezuela, a country with vast oil reserves that has long been in the crosshairs of Trump’s retinue. In recent months, Prince has supported a Venezuelan opposition movement called Ya Casi Venezuela, claiming to have raised more than $1m for it over the summer. The Maduro regime is now investigating Prince’s links to the campaign, which it paints as a sort of front for western governments fostering its downfall.Venezuela has reason to fear Prince and his connections to American spies: the CIA, with a rich history of covert actions in Latin America, was at least aware of a plot to overthrow Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez in 2002.“We were in contact with Ya Casi Venezuela, but a meeting never took place,” said Nieto Quintero. “We have continued to grow and strengthen our ranks and our doctrine, our plans, our institutional, military, security and defense proposals.”Prince is officially active in the region. Last week, Ecuador announced it would be partnering with Prince in a “strategic alliance” to reinforce the country’s controversial “war on crime” with his expertise.Prince did not respond to a request for comment sent through his encrypted cellphone company, Unplugged. Ya Casi Venezuela did not answer numerous emails about its relationship with Prince. As of now, no business deal between the Trump administration and Prince has been signed or publicly disclosed.But across his career as both a shadowy contractor and a political figure, who just graced the stages of the latest Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to applause and then spoke to Harvard Republicans, the public and private sides of Prince remain somewhat antithetical.“He likes to be in the news, which makes him a very bad mercenary,” said McFate. “Frankly, most mercenaries I talk to in Africa, the big ones, despise him.” More

    • 188 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Alien Enemies Act: what is it and can Trump use it to deport gang members?

      by

      Donald Trump on Saturday invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since the second world war, granting himself sweeping powers under a centuries-old law to deport people associated with a Venezuelan gang. Hours later, a federal judge halted deportations under the US president’s order.The act is a sweeping wartime authority that allows noncitizens to be deported without being given the opportunity to go before an immigration or federal court judge.Trump’s proclamation on Saturday identified Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang as an invading force. US district judge James Boasberg blocked anyone from being deported under the proclamation for two weeks and scheduled a Friday hearing to consider arguments.What are the origins of the act?In 1798, with the US preparing for what it believed would be a war with France, Congress passed a series of laws that increased the federal government’s reach. Amid worries that immigrants could sympathise with the French, the Alien Enemies Act was created to give the president wide powers to imprison and deport noncitizens in time of war.Since then, the act has been used just three times: during the war of 1812, the first world war and the second world war.During the second world war, with anti-foreigner fears sweeping the country, it was part of the legal rationale for mass internment of people of German, Italian and Japanese ancestry. An estimated 120,000 people with Japanese heritage, including those with US citizenship, were incarcerated during the war.Why is Trump using it now?For years, Trump and his allies have argued that America is facing an “invasion” of people arriving illegally. In his inaugural address, Trump said the act would be a key tool in his immigration crackdown.“By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to US soil,” he said. “As commander in chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions.”In his declaration on Saturday, Trump said Tren de Aragua “is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion of predatory incursion against the territory of the United States”. He said the gang was engaged in “irregular warfare” against the US at the direction of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.Last month, the Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua and seven other Latin American crime organizations as “foreign terrorist organizations”.What do critics of the move say?Critics say Trump is wrongly using the act to target non-state actors, rather than foreign governments. Civil liberties organizations have accused Trump of invoking the 1798 act unlawfully during peacetime to accelerate mass deportations and sidestep immigration law.“Invoking it in peacetime to bypass conventional immigration law would be a staggering abuse,” the Brennan Center for Justice wrote, calling it “at odds with centuries of legislative, presidential, and judicial practice”.“Summary detentions and deportations under the law conflict with contemporary understandings of equal protection and due process,” the Brennan Center said.Congress’s research arm said in a report last month officials may use the foreign terrorist designations to argue the gang’s activities in the US amount to a limited invasion. “This theory appears to be unprecedented and has not been subject to judicial review,” the Congressional Research Service said.The Venezuelan government has not typically taken its people back from the US, except on a few occasions. Over the past few weeks, about 350 people were deported to Venezuela, including some 180 who spent up to 16 days at the Guantanamo Bay naval base. More

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump invokes 18th-century wartime act to deport five Venezuelans

      by

      Donald Trump has invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport five Venezuelan nationals from the US.In a presidential proclamation issued on Saturday, the White House said: “Tren de Aragua (TdA) is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization with thousands of members, many of whom have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States.”The invocation of the wartime act comes just hours after a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s administration from using the 1798 Act to carry out its intended deportations of the Venezuelans.On Saturday, US district judge James Boasberg of the federal district court in Washington DC agreed to issue temporary restraining order that prevents the Venezuelans’ deportation for 14 days.“Given the exigent circumstances that it [the court] has been made aware of this morning, it has determined that an immediate Order is warranted to maintain the status quo until a hearing can be set,” Boasberg wrote in his order.Boasberg’s decision comes in response to a lawsuit filed the same day by the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward. The organizations charge that the Trump administration unlawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act.In the lawsuit, ACLU and Democracy Forward argue the act has been invoked only three times in the history of the US: the war of 1812, first world war and second world war.“It cannot be used here against nationals of a country – Venezuela – with whom the United States is not at war, which is not invading the United States and which has not launched a predatory incursion into the United States,” the lawsuit stated.“The government’s proclamation would allow agents to immediately put noncitizens on planes without any review of any aspect of the determination that they are alien enemies,” the lawsuit added.A remote hearing has been scheduled for today at 5pm before Boasberg. Both ACLU and Democracy Forward will ask that the temporary restraining order be broadened to everyone in danger of removal under the act, the civil liberties organizations said.The president had previously ordered his administration to designate Venezuela’s Tren De Aragua gang as a foreign terrorist organization.With Trump characterizing the gang as a foreign force that is invading the US, civil liberties organizations such as the ACLU fear that Trump may invoke the 1798 act “unlawfully during peacetime to accelerate mass deportations, sidestepping the limits of this wartime authority and the procedures and protections in immigration law.”The invocation is expected to face legal challenges almost immediately. The 227-year-old law is designed to primarily be used in wartime, and only Congress has the authority to declare a war. But the president does have the discretion to invoke the law to defend against a “threatened or ongoing invasion or predatory incursion”, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan authority on law and policy.“This law shouldn’t be invoked because migration is not an invasion, and we’re not in a war time,” said Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, the deputy director of federal advocacy for United We Dream, an immigrant rights organization. “It’s extremely horrifying that we, as immigrants, are being labeled as terrorists, as invaders.”Those subject to the Alien Enemies Act could be deported without a court hearing or asylum interview, and their cases would be governed by wartime authority rather than by immigration law.The Alien Enemies Act specifically allows the president to detain, relocate, or deport immigrants based on their country of ancestry – and crucially covers not only citizens of hostile nations but also “natives”, which could include people who may have renounced their foreign citizenship and sought legal residency in the US.The centuries-old law was also used to arrest more than 31,000 people – mostly people of Japanese, German and Italian ancestry – as “alien enemies” during the second world war, and played a role in the mass removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during the war.Trump has been building his case for invoking the act for years by characterizing the influx of migrants at the southern border as an “invasion”. He also previewed his invocation in an executive order on his inauguration day, directing the secretaries of state to plan by preparing facilities “necessary to expedite the removal” of those subject to the act.“By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to US soil, including our cities and inner cities,” he said in his inaugural address.Though anti-immigrant politicians and groups have long advocated for the use of the act in response to unlawful border crossings, Macedo do Nascimento said a number of executive orders and congressional policies have already broadened the federal government’s authorities to detain and deport immigrants.“There are already laws that allow for mass detention. There are already laws, like the Laiken Riley Act, that would broaden the dragnet of people who can be detained,” Macedo do Nascimento said. “So the idea of him invoking the Alien Enemies Act feels kind of needless. To me, it is really about building the narrative to label immigrants as terrorists.” More

    • 175 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump administration briefing: Democrats divided as funding bill passes; president rails against justice department

      by

      The US Senate averted a government shutdown just hours before a Friday night deadline after 10 Senate Democrats joined nearly all Republicans to clear a key hurdle that advanced the six-month stopgap bill.The vote deeply dismayed Democratic activists and House Democrats who had urged their Senate counterparts to block the bill, which they fear would embolden Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s overhaul of the US government.Meanwhile, the US president used a speech at the Department of Justice – billed as a policy address for the administration to tout its focus on combating illegal immigration and drug trafficking – to focus on his personal grievances with that department.Here’s more on the key US politics news of the day:Senate averts shutdown but Democrats dismayedThe US Senate on Friday approved a Republican bill to fund federal agencies through September, averting a government shutdown hours before the midnight deadline after Democrats relented.The bill passed the Senate in a 54-46 vote, overcoming steep Democratic opposition. It next goes to Donald Trump to be signed into law.Read the full storyTrump vents fury about criminal cases in DoJ ‘victory lap’Taking over the justice department headquarters for what amounted to a political event, Donald Trump railed against the criminal cases he defeated by virtue of returning to the presidency in an extraordinary victory lap the department has perhaps never before seen.Read the full storyPutin praises Trump, likely raising alarm bells in Ukraine and Europe Vladimir Putin has praised Donald Trump for “doing everything” to improve relations between Moscow and Washington, after Trump said the US has had “very good and productive discussions” with Putin in recent days.The exchange of warm words between Trump and Putin is likely to cause further alarm in Kyiv and European capitals, already spooked by signs of the new US administration cosying up to Moscow while exerting pressure on Ukraine.Read the full storyVance booed at classical concertJD Vance, the US vice-president, was booed by the audience as he took his seat at a National Symphony Orchestra concert at Washington’s Kennedy Center on Thursday evening.Exclusive Guardian footage shows the vice-presidential party filing into the box tier. Booing and jeering erupted in the hall as Vance and his wife, Usha, took their seats.Read the full storyNewsom under fire for Bannon podcastGavin Newsom, the governor of California, was criticised for welcoming far-right provocateur Steve Bannon on to his podcast.Fellow potential future Democratic presidential candidate Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, said “Bannon espouses hatred” and added “I don’t think we should give him oxygen on any platform, ever, anywhere”.Read the full storyMark Carney says Canada will never be part of USMark Carney has said Canada will never be part of the US, after being sworn in as the country’s 24th prime minister in a sudden rise to power.“We will never, in any shape or form, be part of the US,” the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England told a crowd outside Rideau Hall in Ottawa, rejecting Donald Trump’s annexation threats. “We are very fundamentally a different country.”Read the full storyPro-Israel group touts US ‘deportation list’ of ‘thousands’ of namesA far-right group that claimed credit for the arrest of a Palestinian activist and permanent US resident who the Trump administration is seeking to deport claims it has submitted “thousands of names” for similar treatment.Mahmoud Khalil, an activist who recently completed his graduate studies at New York’s Columbia University, was detained this week and Donald Trump has said his arrest was the “first of many”. Betar US quickly claimed credit on social media for providing Khalil’s name to the government, adding that it had “been working on deportations and will continue to do so”.Read the full storyDemocratic senator ditches his Tesla over Musk cutsThe Arizona Democratic senator Mark Kelly announced he was ditching his Tesla car, because of brand owner Elon Musk’s role in slashing federal budgets and staffing and attendant threats to social benefits programs.“Every time I get in this car in the last 60 days or so, it reminds me of just how much damage Elon Musk and Donald Trump is doing to our country,” the former navy pilot said, in video posted to X.Read the full story60% of US voters disapprove of Musk cost-cuttingDonald Trump and Elon Musk face increasing headwinds in their attempt to slash federal budgets and staffing, after two judges ruled against the firing of probationary employees and public polling revealed strong disapproval of the Tesla billionaire’s work. A new Quinnipiac University poll found 60% of voters disapprove of how Musk and his so-called department of government efficiency are dealing with federal workers, while 35% approve.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Marco Rubio told reporters that more visas of anti-war protesters who are on temporary status in the US will be revoked, Reuters reported.

      Former Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement in response to the government funding bill, calling it a “devastating assault on the wellbeing of working-class families”.

      Elon Musk’s Tesla has warned that Trump’s trade war could expose the electric carmaker to retaliatory tariffs that would also affect other automotive manufacturers in the US. The company said it “supports fair trade” but that the US administration should ensure it did not “inadvertently harm US companies”.
      Catching up? Here’s the roundup from 13 March. More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Deporting speakers over supposed ‘propaganda’ is a stock authoritarian move | Sarah McLaughlin

      by

      The dust is starting to settle on the conflicting reports emerging after immigration officers’ arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University protest leader and green card holder, last weekend – and Americans should be alarmed by the similarities to authoritarian regimes’ speech policing.The White House has confirmed the arrest took place under a law granting the secretary of state unilateral power to act when given “reasonable ground to believe” an immigrant’s “presence or activities in the United States … would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the country.The Trump administration has not been shy in asserting that Khalil’s political expression is at the root of efforts to deport him. The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, claimed Khalil distributed “pro-Hamas propaganda”. A White House officially reportedly added that the “allegation here is not that he was breaking the law”. Their actions are not about conduct, but speech.Trump himself claimed Khalil’s arrest was “the first of many to come” against students engaging in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity”.Americans must ask ourselves whether we are comfortable with our government wielding its power to deport speakers for what it claims is pro-terrorist propaganda. If your answer is “yes”, you should know this method is often employed by authoritarian governments with significantly weaker national commitments to free expression than our own.In recent years, India has increasingly canceled or failed to renew the work visas of journalists in the country whose writing has challenged the government, including one whose reporting “crossed the line” and another, married to an Indian citizen, who created a “biased negative perception about India” through her journalism. Officials are also targeting the overseas citizenship of India (OCI) status, available to certain individuals of Indian origin or married to Indian citizens, while it takes aim at those it accuses of “tarnishing the image” of India.These denials serve multiple purposes: they not only diminish government critics’ ability to speak but they also limit the viewpoints that citizens of those countries can access – and warn everyone else to shut up.Similar efforts are under way elsewhere.Russia’s targeting of the press, especially after its invasion of Ukraine, has included the expulsion of foreign journalists including Politico’s Eva Hartog and El Mundo’s Xavier Colas. Hong Kong authorities refused to renew the visa of Rowena He, a scholar and Tiananmen massacre researcher, resulting in her removal from the city and her job at Chinese University of Hong Kong. Kuwait revoked citizenship from the blogger and critic Salman al-Khalidi and has since in absentia convicted him for social media posts and extradited him from Iraq. The list goes on.Governments retain significant authority over who can enter and reside within their borders. But that authority should not be used as a weapon to reflect the government’s preferred political opinions or sift out their critics. Unfortunately, in many places, it is, often on the basis of spurious national security-related claims.The question at hand today is not whether Khalil’s views are popular or beloved among American citizens or politicians. That should never be the question we ask in our most challenging questions about our speech rights. What we must ask instead is: should we approve of the use of government power to expel speakers whose political views the government loathes?Because, through its many comments about Khalil’s case, that is the question the Trump administration has undoubtedly posed to us. If constitutionally protected speech “adversarial” to the political positions of the US and allies can make Khalil eligible for deportation, this administration is ultimately threatening the authority to revoke the status of any lawful immigrants whose views it dislikes. You don’t need to hold any sympathy for Khalil’s views to see why this is an immense threat to free expression.Here in the United States, I advocate for the rights of international students originating from authoritarian regimes who study on our nation’s campuses and carry fear that research or political activity challenging their governments will create consequences at home. Now, immigrants legally in the United States on either a green card or a student visa may be forced to make some of the same calculations as those who live or work in authoritarian states abroad – but about our own government.Is it safe for me to speak my mind? Is it worth the risk? Is the government going to target me for my views?America’s immigration holding cells should not become detention centers for speech the government intends to target.

      Sarah McLaughlin is senior scholar on global expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and author of the forthcoming book Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech More